Well, there's more information out and it seems pretty.. damning. I wasn't convinced by "power grab", but "economic pressure from our sole remaining major sponsor" is _way_ more believable, and the chain is events is getting fairly clear. Check out Joel's explanation for a coherent delve into the events: https://joel.drapper.me/p/rubygems-takeover/

Now I just have to hope the fallout from this includes a less centralized replacement for the tools I'm used to - I haven't found anything solid yet, but I imagine andre will be examining this problem space with rv now.